Good morning, Jesus. I chaired the AA meeting this morning. Last week I chaired twice, offering two seemingly disparate discussion topics. One echoed a prayer I offered last week, where I essentially wondered, "Where is God when it hurts?". In the other, I talked about how we each are charged with the responsibility to pursue that for which we are uniquely gifted.
Today, I tried to tie them both together.
With Jonah's help.
I don't believe Jonah battled the disease of alcoholism, but he certainly had the primary character defect of most alcoholics: resisting authority. We turn to the left when everything around us - including you - point us to the right. Jonah, instead of heading in the direction of Nineveh to offer grace to the enemy, chose instead to board a ship headed in a completely opposite direction.
Been there, done that. A lot.
Jonah knew the storm the ship encountered was because of his disobedience. Unfortunately, upon hearing this - and rather than form a circle, sing kum-ba-yah and have everyone share similar struggles - the crew of the ship took matters into their own hands and tossed Jonah overboard, and Jonah wound up in the belly of the great fish.
His lament in the darkness could, with slightly different coloring, be voiced by any alcoholic who has reached the end of themselves:
In my distress I called to the LORD. From the depths of the grave I called for help. You hurled me into the very heart of the seas, the currents swirled about me, and all your waves swept over me. The waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down. But you brought my life up from the pit, and my prayer rose to you. Salvation comes from the LORD.
And, to tie this back to the AA meeting, this is the where-is-God-when-it-hurts moment. God heard the prayer, and the fish spat Jonah back onto the beach.
In recounting his own story, AA founder Bill W. wrote,
The frightful day came when I drank once more. The curve of my declining moral and bodily health fell off like a ski-jump. I returned to the hospital. This was the finish, the curtain, it seemed to me. It was a devastating blow to my pride. I was cornered at last; now I was to plunge into the dark. No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master.
I lamented last week about the violence breaking out at one of the homeless camps we serve, and asked why you weren't meeting our commitment with an effort of your own. In short, you responded that often your presence is there in the very circumstances that force us to reach the point of desperation. That's the only point where we seem willing to instead reach out to you.
I'm not going to wrestle with whether this is the result of your discipline or the result of my choices. In the end, it's both. In the end, it really doesn't matter. In the end, it's always you 'doing for me what I could not do for myself.'
I'll continue with the second thought tomorrow. Thank you for today, and that for now I'm safely beyond the darkness, and grateful on the beach.
Amen.
